Tag Archives: Department of Environmental Conservation.

The closure began Sunday, and when it reopens Aug. 1, fishermen will be limited to a daily limit of 50 pounds of fluke. “That’s not even a box of fish,” said Riverhead fisherman Phil Karlin, who noted boxes are typically 60 or 70 pounds. The state Department of Environmental Conservation that enforces the federal quota restrictions notified fisherman of the closure via mail several days before, saying it was necessary to preserve fish for the fall, Mr. Karlin said. “It’s putting a hardship on all fishermen,” Mr. Karlin said. “We’ve had it tough as it is. To close it in the middle of the summer like this is not good.” >click to read<07:49

New York State will close its commercial fishing grounds, a staple of the Long Island fishing fleet, for about two weeks effective Sunday. The closure, which applies to fishing in state waters up to 3 miles from shore, will last until month’s end, when it reopens with a harvest limit of 50 pounds per day. Local commercial fishermen, who dealt last month with a similar closure of another plentiful staple in New York waters of black sea bass, say the closure is another blow to their livelihood at a time of pricing stresses and amid state pressure to ease federal restrictions. “It really hurts us,” said Phil Karlin,,, >click to read<13:46

Fishermen critical of a recent deal to ease black-sea bass regulations demanded further state action at a fisheries meeting Tuesday, but officials said the interstate agreement was the best they could get this year. Around a dozen angry party- and charter-boat captains attended a meeting of the Marine Resources Advisory Council in Setauket Tuesday night to raise objections to the deal, which effectively nixed a planned 12 percent reduction in the state’s recreational black sea bass quota this year. They and a supporting lawmaker cited a more lenient quota for competing New Jersey fishermen, saying anglers would favor the Garden State given its earlier season open and ability to keep more fish at a smaller size. >click to read<15:20

An interstate fisheries commission is scheduled to vote Thursday on New York’s appeal for a less stringent quota on locally abundant black sea bass. New York recreational fishermen and women could face a 12 percent reduction in the allowable catch for black sea bass this year under a federal mandate.,, DEC commissioner Basil Seggos said the state was “willing to go to the bear cage” to fight the planned reductions, including filing suit and going into noncompliance on the rules if the federal government did not act. The state has made similar demands to change New York’s share of the commercial fluke quota. >click to read<08:20

The last time Peconic Bay scallops were this plentiful was the winter of 2015, just before six weeks of hard weather put what should have been a five-month harvest on hold. Back then, the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation responded by extending the season for commercial scalloping in state waters by a month to make up for lost time, but this year, the season will end in March, right on schedule. In a statement on Monday,,, >click to read<11:53

Shinnecock Indians have fished the local waters here on the East End of Long Island since before European settlers first appeared in the 1600s, up through its evolution into the wealthy summer playground known as the Hamptons. So David Taobi Silva, 42, a tribal member who lives on the reservation just outside of Southampton village, says that when he harvests fish locally, he needs no commercial license from New York State’s Department of Environmental Conservation and is exempt from its strict regulations to protect fish populations. But that is not how the state sees it,,, >click to read< 20:40

Islip Town’s program to lease acres of shellfish beds to private companies is on track to expand from 125 acres to more than 1,500 acres. The proposed change must be approved by the state Department of Environmental Conservation, but will be good news for the roughly 120 people and businesses on a waiting list to lease the bottom of the Great South Bay, town officials said. >Photo’s click here to read< 09:22

September 27, 1981 – BAYMEN FEARFUL AS SEWER START NEARS – The Island’s remaining 10,000 independent baymen fear that the opening of the Southwest Sewer District next month will mark the beginning of the end of commercial shell-fishing in the Great South Bay. >click here to read< 12:02

New York commercial fishermen are “getting a raw deal” in federal fisheries quotas, and the state will follow through on a lawsuit early next year if meetings in December don’t fix the problem, the state’s top fisheries official said last week. At a meeting at the East Hampton Public Library on Thursday, Basil Seggos, commissioner of the state Department of Environmental Conservation, listened to two full hours of complaints about state and federal regulations and management of fisheries, including restrictive quotas, inaccurate fish-population data, difficulty in getting and transferring permits, and “Gestapo”-like tactics of federal observers on local fishing vessels. click here to read the story 10:10

Two recent high-profile incidents involving Montauk party-fishing boats have drawn attention to a problem on the water in which paying customers take too many or too small fish, while the crews, captains, and vessel owners evade responsibility.,,, It also is interesting to note that the state appears to be finally paying attention to how recreational fishing affects fish stocks. For decades the majority of its enforcement efforts was directed toward commercial harvesters, despite statistics that, in many cases if not all, indicated that sportfishing had an equal or greater impact on the resource. click here to read the op-ed 12:05

Marine enforcement officers from the State Department of Environmental Conservation, on patrol in Montauk Harbor on Aug. 31, saw what they estimated was hundreds of pounds of fish being thrown overboard from a Montauk party boat and wound up ticketing eight people, including the boat’s captain, Keith Williams. According to a D.E.C. spokeswoman, the officers approached the 75-foot Fin Chaser, based on Star Island, and ordered the anglers to stop what they were doing. Their orders were ignored, she said. The party boat’s customers were cited for possessing too many black sea bass and porgies, undersized black sea bass and summer flounder, and for failure to stop dumping upon command. click here to read the story 08:25

The notice by the Department of Environmental Conservation sent to commercial fluke permit holders Monday said the closure, enacted to preserve a fourth-quarter fishing period from October through December, “will remain in effect until further notice.”,,, Local fishermen say they had already been straining under an exceptionally low daily quota of just 50 pounds through most of the year, even though fluke have been relatively abundant this year. “I’m so angry,” said Mattituck fisherman Arthur Kretschmer, 61, who operates a bottom-fish trawler on the eastern Long Island Sound. Speaking of regulators he said, “These people have no clue how it affects people’s lives when they close down a fishery. We have nothing left to catch here.” click here to read the story 17:55

Assemblyman Fred W. Thiele Jr. and Senator Ken LaValle today announced that Governor Cuomo signed their Safe Harbor Law on August 21. The bill provides commercial fishing vessels with safe harbor. Safe harbor means immunity from prosecution from State fishing regulations in certain emergency situations.,,, The Safe Harbor Law would apply when a commercial fisherman (1) encounters or is forecasted to encounter unsafe weather, (2) experiences a mechanical problem, that makes the continuation of the voyage unsafe and poses a risk to life and property, (3) experiences a significant medical emergency which requires immediate medical attention necessary to protect the health of any person on board, or (4) experiences loss of essential gear such as support systems that renders the vessel unable to remain at sea. click here to read the story 14:30

The state Department of Environmental Conservation has agreed to meet with Long Island fishing interests over long-held complaints about access to restricted commercial fishing permits following a move by local legislators seeking quicker action on state fishing rules. The meeting, brokered by Assemb. Fred Thiele (I-Sag Harbor), is expected to address the complexities of acquiring, transferring and even passing to family members permits to fish for vital local fish such as striped bass and fluke. It may also address so-called latent permits, in which a large percentage of existing permits are held but not used. Fishermen also have complained of long-standing moratoriums on certain species of fish. click here to read the story 09:29

The Shinnecock Canal in Hampton Bays became the scene of a massive fish die-off Monday morning, with tens of thousands of menhaden — more commonly known as bunker — clogging the water surface for hundreds of yards. Authorities, including state Department of Environmental Conservation investigators, responded to the scene Monday. Regional DEC spokesman Bill Fonda said staff investigators were looking into the cause, but that initial indications were the die-off was “probably due to the usual reasons … We don’t see anything so far to indicate it’s chemical” or from a pollutant. Read the story here 13:08

New York has finalized guidelines for commercial fishing boats seeking safe harbor in storms and other adverse conditions, eight months after the state lost a court case against one East End fisherman because the rules weren’t in writing. The state Department of Environmental Conservation says the new safe harbor guidelines will give clarity to fishing boat captains faced with potential dangers at sea by defining the conditions under which they can seek permission to enter New York ports while on federally registered commercial fishing trips. The guidelines require captains to notify the DEC before entering port in the state to seek permission to enter. The DEC said the rules were welcomed by fishermen, but one local fishing advocate argued the guidelines are “toothless” because they don’t grant fishermen any rights. Read the story here 07:56

A New England seafood supplier said it deserves the blame for unlawful lobsters being sold by Price Chopper. The Department of Environmental Conservation on Tuesday seized 1,100 pounds of lobster from two Price Chopper supermarkets and a company distribution center after it found illegally small lobsters at stores in Binghamton. “It’s important for people to understand that Price Chopper didn’t knowingly accept short length lobsters from us,” said Dave Madden, an owner of Lobster Trap, a distributor from Cape Cod, Mass. “We delivered them in error.” New York enacted the size restrictions to prevent overfishing, but Lobster Trap said most other Northeastern states are not as strict. That led company workers to mistakenly mix smaller lobsters into the shipment bound for New York. Link 09:12

New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) Commissioner Basil Seggos today announced the adoption of regulations for the Atlantic Ocean surfclam fishery to ensure consistency with the harvest management measures of the State’s Atlantic Ocean Surfclam Fishery Management Plan (FMP). The regulations take effect immediately. “These regulations will help promote the sustainability of the surfclam fishery and economic viability of its traditional New York-based fishing interests by ensuring that the distribution of fishing quota is fair for all participants,” Commissioner Seggos said. An apparent loophole in the surfclam vessel replacement regulations has allowed one or more vessels to catch more than one IFQ in a year. This regulation closes this regulatory loophole that has allowed multiple individual fishing quotas to be fished by one or more vessels which has negatively impacted fishing businesses with vessels limited to one individual fishing quota. Read the rest here 08:24

The decision, which could be made any day now, is based on data from the Marine Recreation Information Program, which is the program NOAA uses to record all of its recreational fishing data. Recent data shows a high number of bluefish were caught last year by recreational fishers. The DEC, however, has argued in a letter sent to NOAA that it finds the data “troubling” and is urging officials to reevaluate the findings. On Monday, Senator Charles Schumer (D-NY) also called on NOAA to take a second look, writing in a letter to the organization that “any decision on bluefish fishing season must be based on up-to-date science, period.” Mr. Schumer’s request follows a letter sent to NOAA last Tuesday by DEC commissioner Basil Seggos, who expressed concern that a mid-season closure would be a “devastating blow to our commercial fisheries.” Bonnie Brady of the Long Island Commercial Fishing Association said that while ending the bluefish season this early would have some impact on related East End businesses, it’s a major blow to commercial fishermen. Read the article here 14:35

A few days after a long-abandoned industrial dam was removed from the mouth of a Hudson River tributary this spring, hundreds of river herring swarmed up into the shallow waters to spawn for the first time in 85 years. The removal of the rusted steel dam on the Wynants Kill near Albany was the first of what ecologists hope will be many barriers removed in Hudson tributaries to restore spawning habitat for herring and other ocean-going species that have been devastated by habitat loss, pollution and overfishing. “There are more than 1,500 dams in the Hudson estuary watershed, most of them no longer in use,” said Frances Dunwell, coordinator of the state Department of Environmental Conservation’s Hudson River Estuary Program. “One of the key items on our to-do list by 2020 is to remove as many of these barriers as possible.” Read the rest here 12:01

Sen. Charles Schumer was in Northport Wednesday calling for updated fishing industry regulations and to consider allowing commercial fishers to catch black sea bass in June. New York’s sea bass fishing closed on May 31, and does not reopen until July 1 – a schedule Schumer claimed is hurting the industry. “The black sea bass stocks are thriving and the industry is well below its allowable quota so it makes sense to keep open this fishery in June rather than close it,” Schumer said. “We also must change the arbitrary and outdated federal regulations that hamstring the state DEC so we can more coherently and fairly manage the black sea bass fishery.” Citing the NOAA National Marine Fisheries Service, Schumer said the 2016 New York State allocation for black sea bass is approximately 200,000 pounds, yet as of May 25. Yet only about 40,000 pounds have been caught. Read the rest here 13:43

About a dozen of them met at a Mattituck marina Thursday to vent their frustration at the measure, which one fisherman said would reduce his income by 80 percent. Meanwhile, the state’s top fishing regulator wrote a letter to federal fisheries managers urging them to expedite an assessment to improve the data upon which local quotas are based. State regulators are pushing federal regulators to fix the problem. In a May 17 letter to top federal fishing regulators, Basil Seggos, acting DEC commissioner, noted the fishery has been rebuilt since 2009, yet fishermen “continue to struggle under low catch limits and restrictive measures while black sea bass appear to be more abundant than in any time in recent history.” Read the story here 14:41

State lawmakers and fishermen’s advocates are pushing legislation that would rein in the powers of search and seizure by state environmental enforcement officers. State Department of Environmental Conservation officers routinely cross geographic boundaries in their searches of fishermen’s boats, trucks and properties, charged Dan Rogers, an attorney who has represented several fishermen against DEC charges, and then competes economically against those fishermen in selling the seized fish for profits to pad state budgets. Mr. Rodgers said at a gathering of fishermen and officials at the home of brothers Danny and Paul Lester, commercial fishermen from Amagansett, on Thursday afternoon. “It’s legal under New York State law, but it’s not legal under the constitution.” Read the rest here 11:58

East End commercial fishing advocates gathered at an Amagansett fishing family’s home Thursday to demand a change to state law that allows enforcement officers the “unfettered” ability to seize and sell fish taken in enforcement actions. The request follows years of charges by several East End fishermen that state enforcement officers seized fish then sold it without any procedure for those charged to reclaim their property once they were later acquitted. Since the practice has come under criticism, the state has returned more than $10,000 to fishermen who were acquitted of charges. Among them were the Lester family, whose members in 2013 received a check for $202.25 for seized fish after they were acquitted of illegal fish possession. Read the rest here 20:09

The environmental group Riverkeeper on Thursday called for a federal investigation to see if construction of the new Tappan Zee Bridge is causing the deaths of endangered sturgeon in the Hudson River. The group said 100 Atlantic and shortnose sturgeon have died since the start of construction in 2012. Many of the fish, which date back to pre-historic times, were found cut in half, severed at the head or mutilated, suggesting vessel strikes,,, Read the article here 19:46

A Waldoboro man has been found guilty in New York of trafficking in poached elvers, according to that state’s Department of Environmental Conservation. Richard D. Austin, 37, has pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge of illegal commercialization of protected wildlife, the agency said Friday in a prepared statement. Austin and Tommy Waters Zhou, 40, of Brooklyn, New York, were arrested in March on charges of trafficking illegally harvested undersized American eels. Elvers are what American eels are called in their initial life stage,,, Read the rest here 13:10

A $1,000 check issued last month to Stuart Vorpahl, an East Hampton bayman, from the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation as reimbursement for the 1998 seizure of fluke and lobsters from his boat was closely followed by a report from the state’s inspector general’s office critical of several of the D.E.C.’s enforcement practices as they relate to the commercial fishing industry. But the report itself is also coming under fire, both for its substance and for the lengthy delay in its issuance. Read the rest here 10:08

Commercial fishermen this week scoffed at a long-awaited report on an investigation of the state Department of Environmental Conservation, saying the report was a hollow failure by State Inspector General Catherine Leahy Scott’s office to hold the DEC accountable for “institutionalized violations of fishermen’s basic rights for decades,” said an attorney who has represented several fishermen from East Hampton and Hampton Bays. Read the rest here 14:55

One of the main problems highlighted in the report dealt with restitutions. Ms. Leahy Scott’s investigation found DEC officers frequently seized catches when they suspected wrongdoing, such as a haul above the state limit or a lack of proper permits, per their common practice. However, the department failed to reimburse fishermen who were acquitted of charges or won court cases until her investigation began. In one instance, a Montauk fisherman was reimbursed last week after a $1,000 take that the DEC took from his boat. The incident occurred 17 years ago. Read the rest here12:38

Commercial fishing advocates Thursday lambasted a new state report that criticizes New York’s top fisheries regulator. At a rally beside a commercial fishing trawler in Hampton Bays, two state lawmakers joined several dozen fishermen and fisherwomen and an attorney for fishermen in blasting the report as a “whitewash.” The report by the state inspector general, released on Wednesday, said the state Department of Environmental Conservation failed to process years of paperwork that fishermen are required to fill out every time they fish; DEC enforcement officers were improperly directing plea agreements, leading to possible “coercion” of defendants, and that property seized in arrests wasn’t returned after fishermen’s acquittals. Read the rest here 21:35:

On a hot August afternoon 17 years ago, a state Department of Environmental Conservation officer, dressed in peat green fatigues, strode up to the side of Stuart Vorpahl’s trawler as it berthed along the bulkhead of Gann Road commercial docks in East Hampton. On the decks of his boat, the Polly & Ruth, Mr. Vorpahl had seven cartons worth of freshly caught fluke, iced and ready for market. “But to no avail,” Mr. Vorpahl would write in his captain’s log later that day, “when I got to the dock, DEC seized the fish [and] arrested me again for fishing without a license.” Read the rest here 14:43

NILS STOLPE: The New England groundfish debacle (Part IV): Is cutting back harvest really the answer?

While it’s a fact that’s hardly ever acknowledged, the assumption in fisheries management is that if the population of a stock of fish isn’t at some arbitrary level, it’s because of too much fishing. Hence the term “overfished.” Hence the mandated knee jerk reaction of the fisheries managers to not enough fish; cut back on fishing. What of other factors? They don’t count. It’s all about fishing, because fishing is all that the managers can control; it’s their Maslow’s Hammer. When it comes to the oceans it seems as if it’s about all that the industry connected mega-foundations that support the anti-fishing ENGOs with hundreds of millions of dollars a year in “donations” are interested in controlling. Read the article here